Timeout

Timeout
Sunetra Choudhury

Just the other day, I was stuck at the traffic lights when my eye was drawn towards a particular billboard. It was an ad for the new line of Levi's jeans whose launch, incidentally, I had even attended. At that time, I was more taken up with these beefcakes with beautiful baby-oil massaged bodies who strutted, pranced and dirty danced on the dance floor. What totally went amiss on me was the line, "Take the easy way out."

Sitting there in the pleasant wintry sun, the words just didn't seem right. What seemed even more queer was that it hadn't struck me sooner, or anybody else for that matter? Had I suddenly become ultra-sensitive or prudish? But that was kind of strange as usually I was considered quite liberal but this was something which definitely violated some part of me.

After all, hasn't taking the "tough but the right way" or the "path filled with obstacles" always been the advisable thing to do. It couldn't just have been my parents, although they were traumatised when they found out that Iindulged in itsybitsy white lies. But I distinctly remembered Shahrukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (the movie which had art critics talking incessantly about the resurgence of belief in old-fashioned values) impressing his girlfri-end's mother with the importance of taking the right but incredibly hard path ``filled with thorns'', so to say.

The audiences lapped it up then, so could things have changed so much? Because things have changed –you only have to look around you to realise that. Take Channel V, for God's sake! Yes, I admit, some of their shows do appeal to my crude sense of humour at times, but at others I just wonder. And just as I am saying this, I wonder how could things have changed so quickly. I was in college a year back. And though I wasn't your archetypal "hip chick", I did – and more importantly still do -- fancy myself as being, you know, ``with it''.

Then how is it that I seem to be the only one turning up my eyebrows at all this stuff on TV? I don't watch it as often as Ishould, I guess, but when I do, I end up hot under the collar. For instance, this programme Line Lagao encourages them to talk and air their feelings about their loved ones on the show. Nothing wrong with that. But it is not just a sweet ol' dedication show. These teenagers tend to reveal a bit too much about their sex life ``We really love the physical part of our relationship'', etc, etc. Of course, it is a good sign that sex is coming out of the closet but how do their parents cope with revelations of their child's sex life on TV? My parents still cannot come to terms with the fact that I might take a romantic interest in some guy and want to go out with him. I guess I am missing out on some real happening parents.

At one end, we have these political types banning adult channels and frowning on fashion television, and on the other we have two nubile young girls singing on TV ``I love you, you love me, homo-sexuality!'' This definitely cannot be the same world which came down heavy on Shabana Azmigetting jiggy with Nandita Das in Fire!

Either this breed is so fed on The Bold and the Beautiful and MTV diet, that it marks a renaissance of the Kamasutra age in India. Or, it could just be that they are confident that no right-thinking adult, especially their square parents, will be watching.

Coming back to the line in the ad, if Levi's says so then one has to take it seriously. Globally, Levi's ads have symbolised youth culture, whether it was the sexy black woman who on closer look turns out to be a man in drag, or the teacher who makes a pass at her young student. Of course, I could be taking the line a bit too far, as my friends point out that it simply suggests that jeans are the ``easy way out'' as a dressing option. Maybe, but I am still not convinced.

So, back to a crucial question: Have I been declared a ``has been'' just a year out of college?